Category Archives: Uncategorized

I was thinking…. Is it possible that bullying and picking on each other has been around for hundreds of years and will always be a crappy part of growing up. Like young lions picking on each other as they find their place in the pride? Somehow it is a normal part of the human experience, like stressing the body on a long run prepares us for a normal day at the office. Is this simply a normal part of stressing the human spirit so we can recover from a lost job or a failed relationship later in life? Like a forest fire burns the environment, but somehow is a natural part of a healthy forest. I hate even thinking about this issue in this way, but I want to challenge the current thinking. Speaking as a High School student that was actually bullied by my teacher and as an 8th grader that bullied a fellow classmate for the way she looked. I wish I could find her now and apologize. I was a jerk; yet consider myself a good person. What was I thinking?

I thought you would all get great pleasure out of this news – October 2010, which is not quite yet over, represents our biggest month ever in terms of sending out hands –
By the end of this month we will have sent the following LN-4’s out (actually, there are more that have been sent out as samples, but these numbers are for actual fittings);
Nepal: 20
India: 300
Equador: 200
Dominican Republic: 80
Total: 600
As I have mentioned before about inventory, once these things start to happen, this inventory can be depleted rather quickly. Also, Odyssey Teams has ordered another 2,000 kits to be assembled and paid for as a result of the Helping Hands program. This is truly amazing news on all fronts everyone.
More than a philanthropic deed. More than a teambuilding process. More than just good corporate social responsibility.
Odyssey Teams’ Build-a-Hand teambuilding program is a radical re-examination of what work is and why we do it. Tried and tested by some of the world’s largest corporations, this philanthropic corporate training program is now available to companies of any size. It is a teambuilding idea whose time has come.
Build a prosthetic limb that will change the life of a land mine victim. Build a team that injects efficiency, innovation and spirit into the workplace. Build a more collaborative, caring and connected company.

One of the business simulations incorporated in our programs is called ‘Pressure Points’. Unwittingly, a barrier is created (raised) by participants in the simulation that negatively impacts communication, problem-solving, and decision-making. The challenge is to lower the barrier to these and the ‘Pressure Points’ bar will follow. Like life, what seems simple, is at times quite trying. In ‘business as usual’ the barrier often goes up rather than down.
Participants often describe the need for better work/life balance. And it seems one of the current infringements on this alluring ‘balance’ is the technology that was suppose to help us achieve it – EMAIL
Aside from too many emails being ‘cc’d’ to people who don’t really need to know (nor care to know) there is another significant problem – Checking and responding to emails on the weekends and after hours.
What was once a fun thing to check on the new ‘mobile device’ has now turned in to an addiction that is hard to kick. Yes, it’s a global economy, but does it have to be a 24/7 economy? Who is making that rule? If you are checking and responding to emails after hours and/or on weekends then you could be-unintentionally. By doing so, you help raise the barrier to work/life balance because whomever you emailed may have felt (out of duty, guilt, fear, brown nose etc.) compelled to reply on the weekend… and so on and so on and the multiplier effect ensues and now people are checking their devices on ‘date nights’, children’s sports events, dinner tables, on the couch.
Perhaps you just wake up early or stay up late while others are sleeping. Might you need a good nights sleep too? Will the caffeinated ‘energy drink’ pull you through and make you present during the rest of your sleepy day?
The costs? You know them – less time to exercise, less energy, less quality time with those you care most about, less time for you and more distractions and stress.
Are there exceptions and benefits? Of course, such as, closing a deal; use of ‘jet lag’ time in hotel rooms. Working with a client in India or the Czech Republic requires some odd hours. We know that anything taken to excess has the potential to become our weakness. Thus, it’s not all or none, rather, whether out of duty, joy, ambition, or fear we must remain aware of the line to know when we’ve crossed it.
Trust the process (a work week etc.) and people on your teams. The barrier will lower. Things will get handled in a timely, professional, manner. Customers and business will carry on quite well…and you will too.
So who is going to go first – and with their seemingly insignificant amount of influence on the barrier of work/life balance in their firm – and NOT do emails on the weekends and such? Will it be you or will you wait to see who goes first? If the later, we’ll all be waiting and doing emails ferociously in the meantime. And the priceless non-renewable resource of time for self and those we love is gone. Be aware of the pattern (and what’s important to you) and make a choice.

By Karin Kapsidelis
Published: March 3, 2009
The bags of plastic parts and shiny screws might have been many things: something you wear on your head, one student guessed. A pen holder, said another.
But the sum of the parts was more than a classroom puzzle for Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students.
“You’re going to build eight hands that will go on eight different people and change their families,” said Todd Demorest, who oversaw a recent team-building lesson for students in the VCU School of Business’ fast-track executive program for a master’s in information systems.photo by JOE MAHONEY/TIMES-DISPATCHKimion Walker (left) and Scott Lints participate in a team-building exercise at the VCU School of Business, where they built prosthetic hands for children.
The prosthetic hands will help children maimed by land mines — about 2,000 accidents occur each month from the estimated 100 million devices planted in 60 countries.
The idea to help children who have lost hands to land mines came from industrial engineer Ernie Meadows and his wife, Marj, whose daughter Ellen was killed in a car accident. Meadows designed the prosthetic hand as a memorial for his daughter and has turned the project over to Rotary International.
Rotary works with Odyssey Teams Inc., a California-based company that offers philanthropic team-building exercises for businesses.
Demorest, a facilitator with Odyssey, said that by creating value for others, these workshops develop teamwork and leadership skills in a way that the typical ropes courses and beach volleyball games can’t.
“This is real,” he said. “It’s not like a metaphor anymore.”
The Helping Hands workshop showed the business students that their goals should be “something bigger than just building a product and making a buck,” said John Testement, whose Glen Allen-based RoadMaps Consulting helped coordinate the VCU event.
He said the workshop also illustrated the need to avoid what can happen within a company when employees get “siloed” working on their own projects and “never look over the cubicle wall to see if they can help others.”
That was a focus of the workshop. Students were divided into teams, but it wasn’t a race to see which one could assemble the hand first. Team members were encouraged to stop and help other groups.
“Were we not able to collaborate with others, we would not have been able to put it together correctly,” said student Kimion Walker, whose team discovered it was missing a piece.
At the start of the event, the teams didn’t know their goal, although one student did guess they were building a mechanical hand.
When their work was done, the students saw of video of children receiving prosthetic hands. An artificial limb would cost about $3,000, according to Odyssey, but these hands are given to the children for free.
The VCU students decorated wooden boxes that will hold the hands they made and posed for pictures that will be given to the children.
It was the first time VCU has offered the Helping Hands workshop, said Jean B. Gasen, an associate professor and faculty adviser in the VCU information-systems department.
Students have told her the exercise put the challenges they face into a much different perspective, she said, and that the world would be a better place “if people could treat one another with the compassion that they felt on that day.”
The workshop was part of the orientation for students in the 14-month master’s program, and its lesson struck a chord with Walker.
“The key to effective leadership is to serve,” she said.
The current economic crisis shows the need for leaders with a strong sense of values, she added, noting that in the Wall Street meltdown, the nation is seeing how “capability without integrity can be dangerous.”
Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804-) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com .

In 2004 Lain Hensley, co-owner of Odyssey, and I were discussing the notion of blowing out our paradigm of what was possible for us in terms of business success WITH family/health balance. We were playing around with a new training concept that would challenge others to be more ‘unrealistic’ in their pursuits. We called the program/process Unrealistic Leadership™. I decided that if we were going to espouse such ideas that I must be willing to try my/our own medicine…. If we can’t produce tremendous results then how can we claim to know anything about it and/or teach others?
So, I committed to train for and complete an Ironman traithlon. I had been a runner before but never a swimmer or cyclist. I had also been discouraged by Doctors saying that due to chondromalacia (knee disorder) my knees would progressively get worse/weaker and my running days were over.
The question of balance in my life at the time when there was no conceivable way for me to find the time to train for this was a real issue. How could I find the time? And could my knees become stronger, more re-generative?
Two boys, age 4 and 6 needing much father time. My wife, ever supportive of my pursuits though a bit worried about this one. The work vacuum pulling me in without enough hours in the day for what we needed to do as a business. Travel to various countries and time zones to deliver Odyssey programs.
I spent the next two years carving crazy amounts of hours and places to fit in my training. Getting stronger and fitter over that time eased my mind a little bit but it never erased the main fear that I had of not being able to accomplish this goal. It was so beyond me and any evidence that I had produced – even all the way up to the day of my Ironman – that I could get off my bike after riding 112 miles and swimming 2.4 miles and begin a marathon. Nothing in my training came even close to providing such evidence of possibility or probability. The only thing that I kept hearing from other Ironman finishers was that (you) will be able to tap into something without ever knowing whether you’ll be able to tap into it. Hmmmm? How does that work?
At the same time of committing to my Ironman, Lain and I had also committed to much bigger financial goals within Odyssey. This multi-pronged ‘unrealistic pursuit’ meant that Odyssey’s global impact needed to have more impact. So while I rode, I thought. While I ran, I thought. While I swam I thought. And there was plenty of time to think with peak training weeks reaching 18 hours. I was learning that some of my greatest breakthroughs for Odyssey came during some of my earliest runs, longest bike rides or hardest training moments. Sometimes really tough trainings were the only way to get out of my head and NOT think about Odyssey. These quiet times of brain and busy times of body were invaluable to freeing up space for something new to arrive in my thinking – later.
The toll of my training time impacted the Odyssey team who compensated enormously for my crazy schedule covering me at different times and events so I could squeeze time.
Notable training moments on Odyssey trips included falling off the treadmill in Singapore when I was too focussed on looking at myself in the mirror and didn’t see that I was running slower than the treadmill. Oops! Falling off an elyptical trainer in Zurich when the handle caught the sleeve of my t-shirt and launched me over the front. Navigating through dozens of kids playing marco polo in an indoor pool in Dublin. Swimming in a roof top pool in Madrid the night the bombs went off in Spain (Al Queada). Long runs in Germany with my Odyssey crew after too much Munich the night before.
May 22nd finally arrived. Friends and families of hundreds of wanna-be Ironmen and women finishers cheered with bagpipes blazing and a gunshot that started the final phase of our Ironman journey and my ‘unrealistic’ pursuit.
Eleven and a half hours later I finished. Many obstacles came up during that time as I covered this last 140 miles of my journey. Perhaps all the fear, trepidation, nervousness and anxiety prepared me to have it be ‘not as bad as I thought’. Trusting more than my little voice may be telling me not to, believing in something beyond the current body of evidence that I have of what is possible, relying on my team (family, co-workers) and others. These lessons still resonate though I often find myself sliding down the slippery path of more ‘realistic’ views that the media, economy, doctors and other influences have that my unconscious uses to manipulate into a perspective that is safer, more ‘real’ and ultimately, less powerful.
Odyssey doubled it’s revenues over the course of my Ironman pursuit. My knees are still stronger than before (Cross training, religious intake of Glucosomine and still the belief in re-generation of these miracle joints) My kids were fine with Dad training so much and will hopefully remember me crossing the finish line with one of them under each arm. My wife, ever supportive, worries about a sequel though I’ve committed that IronDad is more important to me now than another Ironman.

We often add a little Odyssey color/flair to our events with quotes etc. (like the one above from Tommy Protho) placed throughout the training room. This quote usually gets a laugh. It’s true isn’t it? Every team has it’s little blemishes here and there. And on a given day or project it can be anybody’s turn to be the ‘blemish’.
For over 20 years I’ve had the pleasure to see some of the best aspects of humanity in this work. It seems during our programs people are really challenging themselves, and opening up to be ‘good people’ to each other. To include, speak positive, and support each other during the task at hand. Should a dysfunctional ‘blemish’ appear, we all learn from it and move forward without blame, drama, politics etc. In short, people are being socially responsible.
While this has been happening at a foundational level for decades with Odyssey’s team building programs… Seven years ago we wanted to bring it into the spotlight and well beyond the training room walls. Thus, the inception of our Corporate Social Responsibility – Helping Odyssey programs.
Life Cycles, Helping Hands, and Playhouse Project programs give people the opportunity to create tangible results that effect local and global people, families, and communities. It is emotional, and valued by all that are involved.
More than a sound bite heard from a CEO, at Helping Odyssey’s participants get the unique and compelling satisfaction of ‘walking the talk’ and giving back, adding to etc. It feels good to make a difference in some ones life. It also feels good to learn something new and relevant about yourself, team, and business – guaranteed to happen at one of our trainings.

Article written by Maria LenhartMeetings West, June 2008
”The only reason to hold a meeting is to save the world.”
That was the audacious gauntlet thrown down by Tim Sanders at the end of his keynote address at MPI’s Professional Education Conference-North America in Houston last February. The former Yahoo! executive, now a motivational speaker, author and CSR (corporate social responsibility) advocate, challenged the audience to start taking a leadership role in their organizations by initiating platforms for social and environmental change.
Similarly, CSR has been a hot topic at other industry conferences, including the recent SITE Executive Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where 143 incentive professionals gathered to discuss global trends.
“CSR is like the ROI of 2008–everyone is focused on it,” commented SITE President Padraic Gilligan after the summit. “While it has been a growing item of discussion for the past few years, it has moved to a point where you can’t be willing to take a risk and not have a company position on it.”
At PCMA’s annual meeting in Seattle last January, the Convention Industry Council (CIC) Task Force on Sustainability and Responsibility convened for the first time to determine how CIC member organizations can serve as resources on issues concerning the environment and social responsibility. Shortly afterward, MPI created its own task force comprised of CSR experts who will help the organization develop resources for members over the coming year.
Defining CSR
So what is CSR all about and why is it gathering so much momentum in the meetings industry?
Although it includes environmental issues, green initiatives are only one aspect of CSR. According to its “CSR: Where We Stand” statement, MPI defines it as encompassing a “triple bottom line” of “people, planet and profit,” a broad spectrum of social, economic and environmental concerns.
“The triple bottom line behind CSR also looks at social responsibility–the economic and social equity of business choices,” says Marge Anderson, assistant director of the Energy Center of Wisconsin and head of MPI’s CSR Task Force. “Meetings are perfectly positioned to contribute to social responsibility by integrating community service projects into their programming so the impact they leave behind is positive. We can also have a positive impact by contributing to the local economy.”
While CSR may seem to be most relevant to corporate meeting planners, Elizabeth Henderson, CMM, MPI’s director of Canadian development and staff liaison for the CSR Task Force, says it has significance for all meeting planners.
“Associations, including MPI, are very concerned with CSR,” she says. “And independent planners are working with both association and corporate clients who have an increasing CSR focus. It’s important for them to know how to fit in with this.”
For Sanders, author of Saving the World at Work, which will be published by Doubleday in September, CSR is no mere fad, but a “revolution” that is not going to go away.
“CSR is the biggest social trend of my lifetime and it will continue to be important,” he says. “After all, you’re never going to see headlines that say “Eco concerns are dead” or “Communities no longer need help.”
Sanders believes it is the emergence of a new generation of corporate employees that is making it essential for companies to have CSR policies and practices. He also maintains that companies who don’t have acceptable CSR practices will not be able to attract top talent.
“This is very important to young people and it strongly influences where they want to work,” he says. “Research shows that compensation is no longer the biggest factor–a company’s social commitment has more impact than anything else. This generation, the children of the Baby Boomers, has been strongly influenced by horrific events such as Hurricane Katrina and the media coverage, and corporate scandals such as Enron have also had an impact.”
According to Sanders, there are three main criteria that determine whether or not a company is being a good corporate citizen: how it treats its employees, how it gives back to the community and its ecological and sustainability practices.
“The first is the most important,” he says. “You can be as green as you want, but if you’re not good to your employees, it doesn’t matter.”
Sanders is optimistic that corporations have the ability and even the will to have a positive impact on issues such as global warming and poverty.
“I’ve always believed that companies can change the world for good, even though a lot of environmentalists believe that corporations are evil,” he says. “I don’t. Corporations are made up of people and people want to do good.”
Not everyone in the meetings industry is as optimistic, including longtime educator, consultant and independent planner Joan Eisenstodt, CMM, head of Washington, D.C.-based Eisenstodt & Associates.
“I do not agree with Tim Sanders on this one–because I do not think that most companies and organizations are embracing the deed versus the words of CSR, and because customers and staff and members are not shouting for it,” she says. “Moreover, when it is shouted out, most organization find a way around the actions.”
The Planner’s Role
Where Eisenstodt, Sanders and others do agree is that meeting planners can and should play a crucial role in influencing their companies to implement CSR practices.
“Meeting planners have a lot of power for change,” Sanders says. “They are the ones who pick the sites, the vendors, the speakers. They are the movie producers of their companies. Meetings are the only time in which people sit and think about the company’s goals and objectives–so they are the time when the message can be delivered.”
Angie Pfeifer, CMM, MPI’s chairwoman of the board, advocates that planners take the initiative on CSR matters in their companies, something she says she has done in her role as vice president-corporate meetings, travel and incentives for Investors Group Financial Services in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“I heard from my boss that we were starting a CSR task force and I said that I wanted to get involved,” she says. “Since I manage both meetings and travel at the company, I knew there was a lot I could do. My team and I took a lot of time to research how we could implement CSR. It’s not easy and it takes time.”
The results soon paid off, however, with the company able to save many thousands of dollars by taking such steps as not supplying bottled water at meetings, but reusable bottles instead.
“The myth is that CSR is costly, but it’s not,” Pfeifer says. “It was very emotional for me to see how we’d saved by doing the right thing. And, of course, CSR is not just about green meetings. I’m at the table at my company in regards to all sorts of CSR.”
Even companies that already have extensive CSR policies and practices in place may still need action on the part of planners to make sure these extend to meetings. Such was the case at Timberland, a Stratham, N.H.-based shoe manufacturer whose CSR practices include giving each employee 40 paid time-off hours a year to do volunteer work.
“When I joined Timberland a few years ago they had not yet integrated their CSR practices into meetings,” says Michelle Johnson, a former in-house planner for Timberland who is now a partner in a planning firm, Creative Community Communications, whose clients include Timberland.
She says the chief reason behind this is that Timberland did not have a centralized meetings policy, something she recommends to all corporate clients who want to implement CSR meetings practices.
“We had many different departments doing things, so we put together a meetings policy that reflected Timberland’s CSR focus,” she says.
“A centralized policy allows you to look at where you are spending the money. Then you can look at what should be asked for in every hotel contract in regards to CSR.”
Community Giving
One of the most visible ways that planners are implementing CSR is by scheduling a day or partial day devoted to a community project, endeavors that range from rebuilding hurricane-ravaged structures in New Orleans to assembling bicycles for needy children and other projects that can take place in a hotel ballroom.
Just as green practices can be good for a company’s bottom line, community volunteer efforts have type of locale also has its fair share of attractive, meetings-friendly sites with reasonable prices.
Oceanside Oases
While everyone appreciates a day at the beach, fewer and fewer companies are able to afford coastal prices and are now looking for alternative locales with affordable price tags that still provide a fun-in-the-sun atmosphere.
Enter Ventura, Calif. Located about 28 miles south of Santa Barbara, Ventura is an idyllically beautiful seaside community with a good deal of history, even housing one of California’s nine remaining missions: the San Buenaventura Mission.
“It is an old-fashioned California beach town,” says Kathleen Fitzgerald, director of sales for the Ventura CVB. “We have a self-contained little Main Street area that has some significant architecture and wonderful restaurants and boutique shops.”
Nature-loving groups can visit the breathtaking Channel Islands, just off the coast. They can also go whale watching or take a sunset cruise with companies such as the Island Packers.
“Another fun thing to do is have a meeting on the beach,” Fitzgerald says, adding that The Yellow Umbrella Company regularly sets up such gatherings.
Ventura also has plenty of places for groups to stay, Fitzgerald says, adding that its average daily rates during peak season (July-August) can hover around just $139-$149, and off-peak (December) at around $99 per night, and many accommodation offerings are situated close to the water.
“Every room has an ocean view” at the Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach, she says, adding that the Ventura Beach Marriott and Four Points by Sheraton Ventura Harbor are also a popular group choices.
Jessica Wimer, vice president-president elect for the Southern California Association of Law Libraries, regularly rotates her group between high-end coastal destinations and recently decided to bring a group to Ventura, thoroughly enjoying the experience.
“It was excellent. There was something for everyone. Ventura is really quaint and has an adorable Main Street with shops and museums and easy access to the water,” she says, adding that the price point was spot-on. “Value-wise, the hotel was reasonably priced, so that was great.
Moving north up the coast into the Pacific Northwest is Astoria, Ore., located on the Columbia River and just a few miles from the ocean.
Not only is the destination close to water, offering fun group activities such as oyster shucking and fishing, Astoria is also a historic destination with a funky flair.
“Astoria isn’t cookie-cutter,” says Donna Quinn, director of sales and marketing for Astoria’s Cannery Pier Hotel, adding that Lewis and Clark wintered there and it is also the site of the first post office west of the Rockies. “There is definitely a sense of character here and groups can sense that, whether they are meeting in an old Victorian house or a renovated building on the coast.”
The town of less than 10,000 residents is a true value to planners, with a variety of unique meeting venues available at prices much less than larger beachside destinations.
Quinn says many visiting groups like to take a ride on the city’s Riverfront Trolley for just $1 per person. Groups can also reserve the trolley for events or even head over to the Columbia River Maritime Museum for a tour.
Although it may be small in size, Astoria is far from a sleepy coastal town, Quinn says that “in the last five years there has been a renaissance of energy and vitality” in the destination, starting with a surge of restaurants and new venues such as The Loft at the Red Building, a popular meetings site.
The Loft, which overlooks the Columbia River, offers on-site catering for banquets, receptions and awards banquets.
Just next door is the Cannery Pier Hotel, located on a pier over the river, offering several spaces for meetings and events.
Just down the road are two other convention hotels: the 32-room Hotel Elliott with more than 15,000 square feet of meeting space and the 78-room Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Astoria with 2,000 square feet of meeting space.
Mountain Tops
Groups looking for a beautiful yet thrifty location in the mountains needn’t look to high-end ski destinations, but can instead consider places such as Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
“I think we are kind of undiscovered at this point, and because of that hotel costs have remained consistently affordable,” says Dani Zibell-Wolfe, vice president of tourism for the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce.
Sitting at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Coeur d’Alene not only offers 15 blocks of boutique shopping and a variety of group-friendly restaurants with outdoor seating in its downtown district, but the community is also located right on Lake Coeur d’Alene, offering a plethora of activities at reasonable prices.
“When you add the lake into the equation, it creates so much value,” Zibell-Wolfe says. “Not only dollar-wise–but the activities we have create a wonderful value.”
Available water activities range from parasailing on the lake to organizing a dinner cruise for visiting delegates with companies such as Lake Coeur d’Alene Cruises.
Surrounded by mountains, groups are never far away from land-based adventures as well.
“You can walk out of your hotel and generally be within a half-mile of a paved, non-motorized bike trail,” Zibell-Wolfe says, adding that during the winter groups can also enjoy skiing nearby. “We have two ski resorts, Schweitzer Mountain Resort and Silver Mountain Resort, within an hour’s drive.”
With a vibe that Zibell-Wolfe calls “small town boutiquey,” she says oftentimes groups who visit the destination have an inkling to stay permanently.
“People come here for a convention or meeting and they end up buying homes,” she says. “It happens every year. We have a convention coming in June and one of the things they want to set up is a real estate tour.”
As far as meeting space goes, Zibell-Wolfe says the destination is known for the Coeur d’Alene Golf & Spa Resort, which while consistently rated a four-star property, is still affordable for groups.
Other meeting hot spots include the Best Western Coeur d’Alene Inn and the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Coeur d’Alene, both offering reasonable rates.
“Conventions and meetings are all about attendance and after awhile [of going to the same place], it becomes old and stale,” Zibell-Wolfe says. “If you can add some interest in a new destination with exciting activities for the same price, if not less, it is more exciting for attendees. When you come to a destination like Coeur d’Alene, there are so many activities that are at your fingertips, and that adds a lot of excitement.”
Driving about four hours east on I-90 will land groups in Butte, Mont., another affordable and unique meetings destination in the mountains.
Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Butte was a boom town, known for its copper mining. At that time, mining was so profitable it attracted people from all over the world, giving the destination an ethnic flavor that is still felt today.
“Butte is authentic; it is the real deal,” says Sara Rowe, director of the Butte CVB. “It has this incredible history and people really haven’t discovered Butte yet, so we still have good rates on hotels and the food is phenomenal.”
Rowe explains that during the mining boom, Butte welcomed a good deal of Irish, Chinese, Cornish, Italian, and Serbian workers, whose influences have greatly affected the town’s culinary options.
“We don’t have a lot of chain restaurants, we have ones that have been here a long time and have a real ethnic flavor,” she says, highlighting group favorites such as Lydia’s Supper Club and Pekin Noodle Parlor.
Located “right at the top of the Rockies,” Rowe says there are plenty of ways groups can experience the beauty of the outdoors in Butte.
“We have incredible trails, both for vehicles and for hiking,” she says. “There is also a lot of climbing and within 15 minutes you can find some of the best trout fishing in the country.”
Although winter weather can prove chilly, summers “are gorgeous,” Rowe says. “In July, it will be in the 90s and at night it will be around 65-70.”
In addition, Butte is known for its festivals, such as Evel Knieval Days, this year scheduled for July 24-26.
“Butte is known as a festival city, and Evel Knieval was from here,” Rowe says, adding that the community also has a Chinese New Year’s celebration and a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. This year’s National Folk Festival will run from July 11-13 in Butte.
When it is time to get to business, Butte has a variety of affordable meeting space options for groups, starting with the Butte Civic Center, which can seat 5,000 guests theater-style and 2,000 banquet-style.
The 131-room Butte War Bonnet Hotel is another popular group option, with more than 4,000 square feet of meeting space, as is the Copper King Hotel & Convention Center, complete with an 8,000-square-foot ballroom.
Desert Destinations
While Palm Springs’ gentle breezes and Scottsdale’s long stretches of green fairways may come to mind first when planners consider a desert destination, alternative locations such as Moab, Utah, can also quench groups’ thirst for the desert, but at greatly reduced prices.
“There is so much to do for very little cost,” says Marian DeLay, executive director of the Moab Area Travel Council, adding that hiking, camping and rafting on the Colorado River are all popular activities. “Golf is even cheap here. It is around $26 for 18 holes, or just $38 with a cart.”
The Moab Golf Course is one such place where groups can enjoy a day in the sun. The facility also often organizes tournaments, DeLay says.
Beyond its golf, Moab is within easy driving distance to many of the country’s national parks, lending itself nicely to groups looking for reasonably priced outdoor activities. For example, DeLay says groups can visit nearby Arches National Park for $7 a day.
Moab offers a variety of ways to experience the desert, one of them as a split activity between a Jeep and a jet boat.
“We have outfitters that take groups on a Jeep and jet boat combo,” DeLay says. “In the morning, half of the group will get in Jeeps and go up to the Canyonlands and the other half will go on a jet boat on the Colorado River. Half way through the day, the Jeeps end up at the boat docks and they switch.
“They absolutely love it,” she says. “All that is about $60 a person and it includes lunch.”
Groups can also enlist companies who specialize in leading guided ATV and dirt bike tours of “some of the most spectacular scenery you are ever going to see,” DeLay says.
Two of the most popular meetings hotels in Moab are The Red Cliffs Lodge and the Sorrel River Ranch Resort & Spa, both of which offer a variety of indoor and outdoor meeting spaces for small- to-midsize groups.
DeLay says meeting planners can expect to pay around $200 a night at the two hotels during peak season (May-September), but prices can go as low as $140 during slower periods. Limited service hotels are also available for groups in Moab, with prices hovering around $60-$70 per night.
Traveling south to Arizona, the terrain is as much known for high-end meetings destinations as it is for long expanses of cactus-filled desert. Despite this, by heading a little more than 100 miles south of Phoenix to Tucson, planners will find that their dollars stretch pretty far.
In January, Preferred Meeting Management’s Cline brought a group of 700 delegates down to Tucson, staying at the JW Starr Pass Resort & Spa, and couldn’t be happier with her experience.
“It is absolutely a fabulous city to bring conferences to,” she says. “It has an intimate feel and all the advantages of being a smaller community, but it has everything you need. The price structure definitely had a little less impact on our budget [than other destinations].”
Although prices were reasonable, Cline says the quality was still there.
“They certainly could demand the same prices [as other destinations],” she says. “They have beautiful facilities, but their prices are not high-end.”
Graeme Hughes, director of convention sales for the Metropolitan Tucson CVB, says the city’s value not only stems from its attractive prices, but from its variety of venues.
“Value comes from having choices and options,” he says, adding that the city is host to several group-friendly resorts such as Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa and the Hilton Tucson El Conquistador Golf & Tennis Resort, as well as the Tucson Convention Center.
“So much of what we do is based in the desert,” Hughes says, adding that some groups like to head up to Cocoraque Ranch & Pavilion for a truly Wild West experience. “They can accommodate up to 30 people on horseback, and they will take you on a cattle drive. It is like City Slickers. Then the full day ends with a barbeque at the ranch house.”
Groups who would rather experience the desert from the indoors can visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the second-most-visited attraction in the state, according to Hughes, with a zoo, museum and botanical garden.
Yet regardless of what groups decide to do when in Tucson, they are in for a truly unique desert experience, Hughes says.
“Tucson still offers a little bit of mystery,” he says. “We like to think of it as authentic Arizona. We have the rugged terrain and the picturesque sunsets. In Tucson, you can literally walk out your door to hiking trails and nature preserves.”

Bucketworks. That is the name of a unique meeting space in Milwaukee. They promote themselves as “The Worlds First Health Club for the Brain.” We are going to be delivering one of our Life Cycles: bike building, teambuilding programs at their facility in April. The magic of this partnership is that for the past 17 years of delivering teambuilding programs and eight years of our bike building Life Cycles programs, I have been using the term Neurobics to describe what we do. Neurobics is defined as exercise for your brain. Research has shown that if you are right handed and brush your teeth with your left hand one day each week you will decrease your chances of getting Alzheimer’s in latter years. Our body thrives on learning and growing. We are built to adapt to our environment, however we are also built to create safe predictable environments. This tug of war between growth and security is at the heart of our programs. We strive to inspire people through our teambuilding events enough to not only cause them to consider a new behavior but create enough motivation that they would be willing to catch themselves and their team being themselves and adopt the new habit when no one is watching. Would you be willing to brush your teeth once this week with your off hand? Try it. You have nothing to loose. It will cross some new wires in your brain and you might solve that nagging problem you have been facing at work. Check it out. It works!

On Saturday I rode my bike down to the Farmer’s Market! It was such a great feeling to ride my bike; it had been since summer of 2007! I had to take my Diamondback Bicycle down from the side of the wall in the garage, where it had been hibernating since last August. Dust off some cobwebs, pump up the tires, and take it for a test run before I headed out. Then I had to look for the key that went to my bike lock and can you believe it? I actually found it within seconds, it was hanging with all the keys, right where it was suppose to be. I filled up my water bottle, and set out! Chico is a great place to ride bikes, I live on the far north side of town, but it only took me 20 minutes to get downtown. I rode through my neighborhood, where I ran into my sister-in-law and nephew, stopped and said hi, then continued riding my bike. I rode through some orchards that were in bloom and then through the avenues of Chico! Now that brought back some memories! Then I meet my great friend Nicole on the corner of 5th and the Esplanade. We actually have matching bikes, can you believe it?! If you knew us you would believe it! Then we rode down to the market, locked up our bikes side by side and cruised around town. What a great way to spend a Saturday morning!